1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to fuel control systems and, more specifically, to a flexible fuel compensation system for an internal combustion engine.
2. Description of the Related Art
The automotive industry has been under increasing demands to develop an automotive vehicle that can operate on different fuels such as gasoline and alcohol. However, internal combustion engines must have selectively adjustable parameters for efficient combustion when operating on the different fuels. One attempt to meet this demand is an optical refraction index sensor which utilizes the relationship between the percentage of alcohol in a fuel mixture and the angle of light refraction through the fuel mixture.
Currently, only methanol and ethanol types of alcohols are viable fuel alternatives to gasoline since both are able to create a similar amount of power in spark ignited, internal combustion engines. Thus, in order to accommodate the fluctuating supply of alcohol based fuels, automotive vehicle manufacturers have to modify their current fuel control systems to accept alcohol based fuels or gasoline/alcohol fuel mixtures.